An enthusiastic conservation biologist's life in the sticks & travel adventures.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Freaking OUT!

Bizarre moth coincidence!

I read, for the first time this last week (what, 2 days ago?) about "fairy moths" at http://skepticalmoth.wordpress.com. He's got some nice pics and I stare at the crazy long antennae.

Today I see (as in take pictures of) THIS!

Pattern is the SAME as some (species) that he showed. The long antennae are much harder to see on the 2nd shot (which I'm guessing is female?) but she's in much better condition (re: ragged wings or no) than the male. She had much more sheen to the dark parts of her wings. And much more obviously red head, male was much hairier, and maybe all that black hair makes it harder to see the red, or he just has less. You can see hints of some red.

ANYhow, what are the freakin' odds? CANNOT believe my luck. Cripes.

Emailed Mr. Skeptical Moth for his verdict, and I'll keep you posted.

Learn an animal 1 day, sure I've never seen them before, find it WITH CAMERA and they're super mellow on the flowers, TWO DAYS LATER?

Woah.

This is why I say, on occasion, I am so lucky sometimes, it's laughable.

1 comment:

"It gets tricky because now we’re up in the range where this can be 2 species easily. Adela trigrapha or A. eldorata. The characters to ID these seems very poorly defined, so when I figure out what I got up in Mariposa then that should equal yours! And yes, the longest antennae are males."